Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green: Or How to Mix the Color You Want-Every Time

by Michael Wilcox

Book Overview

Artists, designers, printers, and crafters alike would agree that the selection and use of color is of great importance to their work. and yet, a great deal of misunderstanding surrounds color mixing.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0891346228
• ISBN13: 9780891346227
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Writer's Digest Books
• Length: 120 Pages
• Weight: 1.61 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 8.6" x 11.4"

Customer Reviews

Excellent

Rational and helpful full of knowledge. Thank you Michael.

Yellow and Blue SOMETIMES make green...

Don't let the title fool you, sometimes Yellow and Blue DO make Green (just like on Sesame Street and in that commercial for zip-locking plastic bags.) But depending on what paint pigment you use, yellow and blue can give you gray or some other shade. It's all to do with how the pigments are balanced (greenish, reddish, bluish) and how they reflect light in a mixture. The book has you do a number of swatch painting exercises (for watercolor) and these are fun to do. The first involves using cerulean blue (a greenish blue) and cadmium red, a yellowish-red. You get shades of gray. Nice ones, mind you, but if you thought you'd get PURPLE from this mix, well, no way, Jose. I did about 20 of the exercises and found it quite useful when I subsequently did a painting involving a lot of masonry in the picture. I used a limited paletted of cerulean, cadmium red and a brownish yellow and found I got a nice gray for the masonry, but the yellow (Nickel Azo Yellow) did NOT work well. In summary, if you paint watercolor, this is an essential text to keep you learning about color mixing and what works, what doesn't. I highly recommend this to amateurs and experts alike.

Let's get something straight about this color theory book.

This is a book that is good for several kinds of readers, in my opinion:1) For readers who want to use it as color references, the book provides a considerable number of color charts. Readers can use them as a guide in the mixing of colors (oil, water colors, or others).2) For readers who like "color formulas", color mixtures presented in the book are of big help and a good start.3) For readers who like to get to the bottom of things, the author presents rather in-depth discussions on color theories. Briefly speaking, there is a major difference between the mixing of light of different colors (i.e. mixing of visible light of different wavelengths. Remember, visible light is simply a spectrum of electromagnetic signals, characteristic by their frequencies, hence, their wavelengths), and the mixing of color pigments. While the resultant color obtained as a result of the former obeys the "additive mixing rule", the resultant color obtained by mixing of the latter (color pigments) follows the "subtractive mixing rule". My rough analogy of these two rules is that "additive mixing rule" (the mixing of light) may be considered "What you see is what you get - a.k.a. WYSIWYG"; meanwhile, the "subtractive mixing rule" (the mixing of color pigments) may be considered "What you see is what you DON'T get" - a.k.a WYSIWYDG".Commonly, scientists such as physicists and chemists are more familiar with the additive mixing rule, since this is of common use in measurement techniques such as colorimetry or photometry. On the other hand, artists and painters who understand pigments and color mixing are usually more familiar with the "subtractive mixing rule".It is also worth mentioning that the "subtractive mixing rule" is sometimes referred to as the "subtractive system" of color mixing. This system is NOT at all new, nor is it presented solely in this book. Instead, readers may find it discussed in other color theory books as well.To sum it up, this is a good reference book for artists at any level; and speaking with a scientist within, I believe there are nothing wrong, nor are there any lies presented in this book, regarding the theory presented in it. In my opinion, it is a decent book in the mixing of color pigments. Therefore, it deserves an accurate review from both viewpoints, those of a scientist and an artist.STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

Important book for learning about colour mixing

Like many people I imagine, I left art school not knowing much more about colour than when I went in, my teachers' ignorance of many colour issues as profound as mine. Eventually I was lucky enough to come across this book and it helped me gain a much better understanding of the reasons for varied mixing outcomes. The inaccurate methods propagated by traditional colour-mixing theories have been with us for quite a while and this book is a very good beginning to overcoming many of them. In an orderly, logical manner the author takes the reader through many mistakes and points you down the path to more reliability in mixing a desired colour - no more will you have to "make do" - instead, by understanding the bias of pigments, the outcome is no longer a matter of intuition, or worse, guesswork. These techniques should be taught in every art class in every school, and it really is simple enough for this to be practical. Another beauty is that it works with any medium. This book is highly recommended for learners looking for better insight into practical colour mixing. Note: the technical explanations underlying the ideas in the book are simplistic and not scientifically accurate, so should be taken as a rough guide only.

Best Introduction to Color Mixing

This book does not cover Color Theory, which is a specialized branch of color use. Instead, Blue & Yellow Don't Make Green addresses some of the basic issues of color mixing, in terms of both light and paint. It clearly explains the physical properties of each and how this knowledge can be used to best effect.Yet, the text is never dry or overly-scientific. It cuts right to the chase, giving the reader plenty of information about color mixing, along with many beautiful color illustrations.As an artist and teacher, I use Blue and Yellow both in the studio and in the classroom all the time. My hat is off to Michael Wilcox!

This book will go down in history as foundational.

Artist have struggled with understanding color mixing since the 16th century as evidenced by the differing theories and opinions. The struggle to mix the color you want every time has continued in this century mostly because the traditional three primary color wheel, which is deeply embedded in our schools and other art classes, is incomplete and therefore limited in its use. As evidenced by countless and expensive piles of mud and just settling with "This will have to do" that frustrates many artist. With Michael Wilcoxs' sound scientific background this is not a theory that can be argued. It is a fact and he explains how to use these facts in a logical method to base your decisions about mixing colors. You cannot go wrong by studying this book. However, if you already know the three primary color wheel, you will have to study and practice harder to unlearn the three primary and relearn the proper and more dependable way to mix color. If you do the work it will change your life. You will never have to struggle with guesswork and unknowns to get the color you want every time. Like I said, remember as you're reading this book that you are a part of history bing made.